Scientific presuppositions and the supernatural

In the discussion of my interview (linked to in the previous post) one of the readers suggests that I think science must presuppose naturalism on, what I gather is being suggested, something like faith. This is, of course, nonsense but it is very popular nonsense and is based upon a couple of misconceptions concerning science that are common even among scientists, themselves. The error finds its formal expression in the idea of a distinction between ‘metaphysical naturalism’ and ‘methodological naturalism’ that is often put forward by de Vries, Plantinga and by various accommodationalists. Since this issue arises in the part of the book I am currently working, I’ll run through it here briefly.

The first problem with the distinction is that the terms used sound all too similar to the usual ontological/epistemic naturalism distinction. Indeed, sometimes those two kinds of naturalism get called ‘metaphysical’ and ‘methodological’, respectively, also.

Secondly, the Plantinga distinction is not really between two different kinds of naturalism but between two different ways of holding naturalist ontological beliefs. In the case of metaphysical naturalism, it is supposed to be the case that one claims that naturalist ontology is correct while in methodological naturalism one simply makes the pragmatic decision to only make use of natural explanations, without taking a stance on the existence of God. The implication is that according to the methodological naturalist there is no good evidence either way so the choice can only be made pragmatically.

Thirdly, metaphysical naturalism is standardly presented as the dogmatic assumption that God does not exist. While this is a possible way that someone could hold an ontologically naturalist position, it is a very peculiar one and certainly does not exhaust the possible naturalist stances when combined with methodological naturalism. This is hardly surprising given that the Plantinga dinstinction is not used for proper investigation of naturalism but for argumentivative reasons to frame the debate in terms of a supposed distinction between naturalist ‘fundamentalists’ and accommodationalists.

If that were all to the distinction it would not be worth mentioning in a serious discussion of naturalism. And, indeed, in a purely philosophical context it would probably not. However, in the context that I work in, that also includes anthropological and psychological considerations, it is important to understand why people find this distinction attractive. As it is, such investigation will end up bearing philosophical fruit.

The fundamental problem with the Plantinga distinction is that it effectively assumes the primacy of ontology over epistemology. By this I mean that it assumes that to understand science one must beging with the ontology of science. This is very much understandable from the point of view of someone who was brought up on a christian religion that is presented as having its basis in a number of ontological claims that must be taken as true. It is also a profound misunderstanding of what science is. It would be better to think of science in terms of various methods that are used to investigate the world. The scientific ontology is an a posteriori result of the application of those methods to the world. To put it in other terms again, ontological naturalism is the a posteriori result of accepting epistemic naturalism. Yet, even that is not quite right as it suggests that science can be identified in terms of some set of methods. This is quite incorrect because, just as the contents of scientific ontology, the contents of scientific methodology undergoes under constant change. The reason it does that is that scientists allow their results to shape their methods and beliefs. In effect, it is best to think of science in terms of an attitude – that attitude being of actively seeking to alter one’s beliefs and methods on the basis of what knowledge one does possess in order to better understand the world. The contents of scientifc ontology and the nature of scientific methods follows from this, again, only a posteriori.

What does this entail for Plantinga little distinction. The metaphysical naturalism he talks of runs very much counter to this idea of science in that it is supposed to make ontological assumptions without any evidence. So, any metaphysical naturalist is not a very good naturalist at all. Indeed, I know of no philosopher who would fit this bill. What about methodological naturalism? That is fairly nonsensical also in that scientists are not naturalists beause they have to be in order to do science. No, they are naturalists because, in so far as they allow the evidence to shape their beliefs, no belief in God or any sort is actually required by that evidence.

I have avoided that term ‘supernatural’ even though it appears in the title of the post. The reason is that the term is also highly ambiguous. As an ontological distinction between entities in the world it is useless to a naturalist for the simple reason that the naturalist does not think there are any supernatural entities. It is more useful as a distinction between different kinds of concepts that people have – it is definitely the case that a lot of people have supernatural concepts. At this point things get interesting in that we can ask why people have those concepts. This is what cognitive science of religion does, of course. I think the explanation will be purely naturalist. To say that is also somewhat ambiguous, however. Firstly, I think that the explanation will be natural for much the same reason that I think the sun will rise tomorrow. It is a case of making an induction on past events. Secondly, however, I expect the explanation to be natural because for something to be an explanation it must be natural. What does this mean? It means that it has to be in terms of some sort of a mechanism that can be investigated. This implies that supernatural explanations are nothing of the sort, even though they may be psychologically convincing. Again, the reasons why they are convincing are interesting and are being investigated.

A consequence of what I have said is that the term ‘naturalist’ in its philosophical sense is, actually, at heart somewhat nonsensical or, at best, empty of content. The only reason why it is necessary is that there are people who hold what, for the want of a better term, are called supernatural beliefs. Analysing the issue more deeply, the term ‘naturalist’ is only neccessary due to the biased nature of human cognition and the kinds of ghosts it gives birth to in our minds.

This is hardly a carefully presented statement of my views on these issues. It does, however, help to clarify what I mean by “scientists have to be naturalists”. Hopefully.

That works. Especially the part about scientists being naturalists because the evidence does not require anything else (though that statement may be tautologous!) It is a key point in science that strenuous efforts are made to avoid believing in anything unless it cannot be avoided. Also, you will find particle physicists, when asked about the existence of the electron, say things like “I believe it exists ‘FAPP’.” FAPP means ‘for all practical purposes’ i.e. they are just saying I don’t care whether it is there or not, but if I assume it is, the theories work…

About the tautology. That’s why I talked about belief in God as an example that is not tautologous and only turned to the supernatural as a general category at the end.As for the FAPP point – that is what is right about Plantinga’s methodological naturalism but, then, that is what every naturalist has to say given that every naturalist has to be a fallibilist (of pain of internal inconsistency). Finally, the way I handly ravens and other birds of a feather is that I argue that sceptical worries that are like this can not undermine our overall (fallibilist) belief but simply serve to point to areas where we do not understand what is going on. Hello, Mr. Hume (the naturalist version, thereof, of course)!

Thanks for this thought-provoking post. As you say at the end, it isn’t supposed to be a carefully-crafted explanation, and so I’m not too surprised that it left me confused on a few points. However, I am interested enough that I would appreciate either a more careful explanation of those points or a pointer to where such an explanation can be found (preferably one suitable for non-specialists).

You devote the first part of the post to attacking a distinction, which already puts us on tricky ground. After all, if you were attacking an argument, rather than a distinction, there would be a clear objective: to show that the argument doesn’t serve to establish its conclusion. But a distinction just points out one possible way to divide up the world, and doesn’t have a conclusion to be undermined in this way. Of course, there are a number of problems that a distinction might have:

a. It could fail to exhaust all potential options.
b. There could be substantial overlap between the options.
c. It could be irrelevant or pointless.
d. It could be nonsensical.
e. It could rely on incorrect presuppositions.
f. It could employ a confusing choice of words (strictly, this is a problem with the manner of expression of the distinction, rather than the distinction itself).

However, I wasn’t really able to see from your post which, if any, of these problems you were attempting to point out. Let me explain how far I got, so you can see where I’m getting confused. You mention nonsense in the first paragraph, but I don’t think you’re suggesting problem (d) there as you haven’t yet mentioned the distinction at that point. You unambiguously suggest problem (f) in the second paragraph, but I’m sure this is just a side point for you as (f) is a trivial sort of problem, easily resolved by a change of terminology.

What you say in the third paragraph doesn’t fit my list above – it isn’t an attack on the distinction, but on a claim which might be made about the distinction, namely `this is a distinction between different kinds of naturalism’. But I’ve never seen anyone rely on that claim. Perhaps your point is that there a potential for confusion here because of the appearance of the word `naturalism’ on both sides of the distinction, but if that’s the problem then it is type (f) again, and so pretty innocuous.

At first I thought your fourth paragraph was suggesting problem (a), but that isn’t quite right. Instead, you seem to be saying that people often willfully misunderstand the notion of methodological naturalism. You also suggest that it was introduced in bad faith. Of course, even if true, neither of these facts would show that the distinction is a bad one, just as an argument ad hominem doesn’t establish the invalidity of an opponent’s arguments.

In the sixth paragraph comes the meat of your objection, but this was the hardest part to follow. Given the first sentence, I thought maybe you were suggesting problem (e), but that can’t be right since the distinction clearly doesn’t rely on the primacy of ontology over epistemology for its sense. So I’m sort-of thinking that you intended to suggest problem (c), but I’m not really sure. Type (c) problems are only problems relative to some intended purpose for the distinction, and you don’t really go into the issue of intended purpose except in the discussion of a disguised purpose in the third paragraph.

The seventh paragraph says that the problems you’re suggesting are of types (a) and (d) (I think), but appears to be recalling the third paragraph (where you maybe discussed a type (f) problem), and the sixth (where I thought perhaps you were discussing a type (c) problem). That left me a bit confused.

There were some other things later on that also confused me, but I think I’ve said quite enough for the time being.

First of all, thank you for the interesting comment and I am sorry I did not get to it around Christmas. It must have been the eggnog. Re-reading my original post I find that I share some of your confusion. Who wrote that?! The best that I can do is point to someone else’s writing. Maarten Boudry has a recent paper in which I think he manages to say (clearly!) much that needs to be said concerning methodological naturalism. The URL is: http://sites.google.com/site/maartenboudry/teksten-1/methodological-naturalism